Psychology
Professor Edward Tolman, who led the fight against
the loyalty oath, was fired by the Regents. In
1964, they named Tolman Hall in his
honor.

In 1949, in the midst of the McCarthy era, UC
administrators proposed, and the Board of Regents quickly
adopted, an anti-communist oath for all University of
California employees to sign. The loyalty oath provoked an
extended battle that rocked the institution. Thirty-one
"non-signer" faculty and scores of teaching assistants,
student employees and staff ultimately lost their jobs. The
professors who had been dismissed sued and won reinstatement
by the California Supreme Court.

On the 50th anniversary of those traumatic times, a
two-day symposium and a series of related events on the
Berkeley campus will commemorate the loyalty oath
controversy and issues it raises -- including academic
freedom and tenure, anti-communism and university
governance.

The retrospective is organized by the University History
Project and the Center for Studies in Higher Education, with
a number of co-sponsors.

All events are free and open to the public.

Loyalty Oath SymposiumOct. 7-8, Booth Auditorium
Boalt School of Law

The centerpiece of the loyalty oath retrospective will be
a free two-day symposium to explore the history of the oath
and its meaning today.

On Thursday, Oct. 7, the symposium opens at 1:30 p.m.
with introductory remarks by Chancellor Berdahl. An address
on "Academic Freedom During the McCarthy Years" by Ellen
Schrecker, editor of Academe magazine, will follow.

Three past UC Presidents who were intimately connected to
the oath controversy will be panelists: "non-signer" David
Saxon, who was on the physics faculty at UCLA; Clark Kerr,
who was involved in the Berkeley Academic Senate's efforts
to resolve the dispute; and David Gardner, who wrote a
history of the period. The Thursday event ends at 5 p.m.

Friday's program, from 1 to 4:30 p.m., features five
professors who resisted the oath -- Howard Bern, Gordon
Griffiths, Charles Muscatine, David Saxon and Howard
Schachman.

Panelist discussing politics and higher education will
include UC President Emeritus Jack Peltason, Berkeley
Academic Senate Chirman Robert Spear, and Professor David
Littlejohn, chairman of the Academic Senate Committee on
Academic Freedom.

University History Project Websitehttp://www.ishi.lib.berkeley.edu/cshe
This Web site contains a growing archive of documents and
other materials chronicling the oath controversy, as well as
a complete schedule of loyalty oath symposium events and
speakers.